This invention relates generally to artificial bait used in fishing and more particularly concerns baits intended to drop at relatively low rates of descent.
Fishermen generally use weights to increase casting distance and accuracy as well as to cause bait to sink and use floats to counter the weight so as to restrict the level to which the bait will sink. In situations where the angler desires for bait to fall from the surface to the bottom at a very slow rate of descent so as to tantalize a fish at any depth therebetween into striking the bait, the counterbalanced relationship is so sensitive that minimal variations in any component prevent achievement of the desired effect.
In my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 5,438,790, a balanced artificial bait is described for use with a typical fishing hook or jig. The hook or jig has an average density greater than the average density of water while the artificial bait has an average density less than the average density of water. Thus, the hook tends to sink and the bait tends to float. However, the volume of the bait is proportioned to the volume of the hook so that their average density taken together slightly exceeds the average density of the water and the hook and the body together sink relatively slowly in the water. Coordinated choices of bait and hook result in rigs of weight suitable for accuracy and distance in casting and yet so counterbalanced for buoyancy as to provide a minimal rate of descent in the water.
While this balanced artificial bait affords an angler a predetermined slow rate of descent, a different bait must be used for each rate of descent selected by the angler. The angler could increase the rate of descent of a given bait by breaking off a portion of the artificial bait. However, if too much of the bait is broken off, the rate of descent will be too fast. Thus the angler must again deal with the problem of adding a counterbalancing weight to the bait to experimentally achieve the desired rate of descent or changing the bait entirely and starting the process anew.
It is, therefore, the primary object of this invention to provide a balanced artificial bait which is readily adaptable to permit selection of any of a plurality of drop rates without changing the bait.